


Poppet: Peeking Through Windows of Time

by DiNovia



Series: The Poppet Vignettes [2]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/F, POV Second Person, Present Tense, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-21
Updated: 2015-10-21
Packaged: 2018-04-27 09:50:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5043697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DiNovia/pseuds/DiNovia





	Poppet: Peeking Through Windows of Time

_**Beg, Borrow, and Steal**  
_

Your escapes seem narrower with her than they did with the Doctor.  Somehow you're left gasping for breath more often while she cackles delightedly at "the look on your face!"

See, the Doctor—he fell into mischief like an absent-minded professor falls into wishing wells: unexpectedly, endearingly, and usually because he wasn't minding his way.  What he couldn't solve with his vast intellect, he solved with his feet.  There was _a lot_ of running. 

Missy, though—she seeks out mischief like that one kid down the end of the lane—everybody knows one—who jumped into wells or climbed up trees or poked sharp sticks into dark holes for the worst reason of all: "I wanted to see what would happen!"  You've lost count of how many times the two of you have ended up hiding from certain death in some cupboard or crevice while Missy claps her hands over her mouth to keep from giving you both away with her laughter.  

This one required the use of your vortex manipulators—something you've been trying to put a stop to since you left with Missy.  They aren't good for you, either of you, but what else could you have done?  The Cha'aa Executioner and his assistant must still be standing in the arena wondering what happened to you. The swing of the Executioner's axe—er—whatever it was—still rings in your ears.  It didn't look like any weapon you'd ever seen before, despite its meter-long, tooth-encrusted blade.  Of course, he had called it something else, something dark and twisted-sounding with a lot of Ks in the name.  Axe or no, it would have easily done the job it was meant to do—and nicely at that—had you not somehow triggered your vortex manipulator.  

You don't know quite where you are in space _or_ time at the moment and your heart pounds in your chest like a terrified bird beating its wings against the bars of its cage.  It's all you can do to catch your breath but when you turn to find Missy, shock sucks away what little you have in your lungs. 

The thing you see—you can't make sense of it immediately.  In all your time with the Doctor, you never saw anything like it.  Not once.  

Blood.  

Fear rushes after the recognition like a spark along a fuse and you lurch toward Missy, your eyes welling with tears before you can stop them.  There's an 8-centimeter line on her cheek and it's oozing blood.  The sight rips at your heart.  

You've seen so many die—vaporised or exterminated in a flash of blue, marched off for upgrading or burned or drowned—once even, Jenny Flint was murdered while psychically communing with you and other friends of the Doctor—but you realise now, right now, for the first time.... 

You've never seen anyone bleed. 

You raise trembling fingers to Missy's face and she skitters away from you, her eyes flashing. 

"Don't!" she says and she means it.  She doesn't want your pity. 

But it's not pity you're after; it's reassurance. 

"Please," you whisper, your voice broken.  Tears skate down your cheeks and your fingers twitch, needing to touch her. 

You haven't before.  Touched her.  Not really. 

Holding onto her while you ride behind her on your own motorcycle doesn't count.  Neither does her snatching your hand to get you to run faster.  

You knew when you left your life and the Doctor to be with her the words "taking it slow" would take on new meaning.  She's a Time Lady.  Civilisations have bloomed and withered in her lifetime.  She is older than your world and all it has ever been and when you left with her, you knew there might never be anything physical between you.  Not in the way anyone would ever imagine, no matter how your blood burns for her. 

Missy stiffens and seems ready to bolt but acquiesces when she sees your tears, holding still yet wary, like a hawk with a broken wing.  You cup her face in your hands so gently, you barely touch her skin.  You're afraid this moment might disappear—pop!—like a soap bubble so you take your time, forgetting to breathe in the process. You focus on the cut first, realising instantly how superficial it is.  The tiniest edge of the executioner's weapon must have glanced off her cheek as you both disappeared.  You glide your thumb underneath it to soothe away whatever pain there might be and then look into her eyes. 

She's staring at you now.  She doesn't blink.  There is finally nothing between you, no danger to run from, no adventure to chase, no space separating you. Only this moment and—falling into those ageless blue eyes—you see her, really _see_ her for the first time.  You see all the way back to the beginning—to how it all began—to the two boys standing in front of the Untempered Schism and you see it play out as it always had to—one boy elevated by what he saw, one boy decimated.  

And the years afterward, the jealousy and the unfairness of it all, the boy's scorching need to prove himself smart, worthy, chosen but fumbling it over and over, always falling flat.  Pre-judged as broken, he could only ever be broken to them.  Redemption—like death—was for others. 

All those years, loving his friend and hating him at the same time—knowing somewhere inside himself the Doctor's life wasn't necessarily easier, just different.  But the drums, the endless drums, kept him from understanding what that meant. They kept him tethered inside his own skull, never able to breech the vortex surrounding the only question worth asking, the only question he had ever had—WHY?

Then discovering he'd been broken _on purpose_ by Rassilon, the drums embedded in his mind for Rassilon's reasons, as a means to Rassilon's ends.  Choosing at the last possible second to be on his own side for once—too little, too late, but just enough to stop Rassilon's return and the Ultimate Sanction, to stop the Time Vortex from tearing itself apart at Rassilon's behest. 

No more why, no more where, no more when.  Stuck for all time in a pocket universe with the bastards who had broken him.  Tended by one alone, an outcast like him, a woman with salt-streaked red hair.  She gave him all her remaining regenerations and taught him where to look between the shadows and the sunlight and the burning skies for those infinitesimal holes in their prison, taught him how to use them as she had, showed him how to leave Rassilon and the others behind, once and for all. 

And so Missy had been born, a stranger in her own body, a revolution in an Edwardian walking suit with only a vague notion of what she should do now, mad with envy rather than the sound of drums and all of the Universe to discover. 

She returned to the Doctor, of course. The two of them are a binary star-system of their very own, you think—bound in constant orbit, eclipsing each other but never vanquishing. Two sides of the same coin. 

And here, now, looking into her sky-blue eyes with all of her history flayed open before you, you see it: she thinks she's stolen you. 

Before you see anything else, though, Missy lunges forward in a flash and presses you up against the wall, pinning your wrists over your head. She looks into your eyes and you know what she sees; it’s reflected back to you like Grecian sunlight bouncing off polished bronze. 

Desire.

You are frozen in time with her, the moment hanging there, stretching wire thin. Your blood boils. You want nothing more than to taste her.... 

As you lean forward, your lips parting in anticipation, she breaks the moment. Time snaps back to its usual frenetic pace as she ducks and nips you just below your right ear. 

"Naughty, naughty, Poppet," she whispers and then she's gone, releasing you, leaving you breathless for another reason entirely this time, every cell in your body aching, wailing with loss. 

She straightens her coat and smooths her skirt, then whirls around, the moment seemingly forgotten as she tries to ascertain where and when you are exactly. 

You take the moment offered to get yourself back under control, twitching your jacket and your jumper back into place as you wonder what you're supposed to do with all the adrenaline and sheer, unadulterated _need_ coursing through your veins. When you finally look up, you catch her with her eyes closed and she's doing the same thing you are—except she looks different than you feel. She looks resolute...and sad. 

"You didn't steal me," you blurt, the sharp edge of your denial sounding harsh even to your own ears. 

Missy turns slowly, fists forming at her sides. "What did you say, dear?" Her voice is deceptively sweet but her eyes flash. 

You wither a bit. "You didn't steal me," you repeat, gentler this time. You take a step toward her. "Missy, I _want_ to be here—to be with you. I knew what the ribbon meant the minute I saw it. You didn't force me. You never even touched me. I _chose_ this—chose you. I would again." You look at her and allow a little of your own steel to show in your eyes. "You didn't steal me." 

Missy slowly unclenches her fists. When she looks at you, her eyes are laughing. 

“Well, I didn’t borrow you, did I?” she asks, raising one regal eyebrow at you. Her gaze slides slowly down your body and back up. You shiver, feeling it as a caress. 

She smiles and it’s that slow, sexy, sensuous smile that drives you mad. 

“’Borrow’ implies I intend to give you back.”

 

**_Hook, Line, and Sinker_ **

You die.  You—are dead?  You are dying? 

It's hard for you to tell when everything is so dark and cold and empty.  You reach for a memory—any memory—hoping something from your life before might anchor you in this new place of death.  The only thing that comes to you is the sound of screaming.  It's not your own and it’s not a scream of terror.  It is a scream of unutterable rage and you want it to stop.  It hurts, this scream.  It pierces you like nails driven into your bones and you want to put your hands over your ears but you don't have any anymore—hands or ears—so you can't.  The scream is everywhere.  It rages like a storm for a long time and then, blessedly, it fades. 

The vacuum of the cold emptiness swallows you up again and you cast about for another memory, another anchor.  This one is of light—angry and red—cutting you.  You feel it all over again, a searing bolt of agony slicing into you, and then.... It's gone, erased, lifted out of your sensory web in its entirety as if it had never been.  Another light, golden and gentle, envelopes you and you glide into it, with it, letting it hold you in its bubble of protection for however long you can.  You feel sleepy and warm.  You'd yawn if you could.  Instead you drift into nothingness.

Later—and you have no idea how long it's been—you become aware of the icy darkness again.  This time it isn't completely empty.  You hear a sound—soft, sweet, and so very sad.  A woman, humming.  You stretch toward it—toward her.  Toward her.  Her.  A woman, humming.  A woman, caressing.  A woman—what woman?

The darkness seems to recede ever so slightly, becoming a deep, cosmic purple at the edges.  The cold is not so biting or so infinite as it was just a moment ago.  You smell hay and scorched cotton.  You hear a woman, humming. Soft, sweet.  

The humming becomes singing.  A woman, singing.  A woman, singing a sad song.  So sad.  A woman singing about her love. 

The purple edges of the darkness lighten into plum and then into lavender.  You feel the chill begin to fade.  Perfume—light, floral, spicy—joins the scents of hay and scorched cotton.  You hear a woman, singing. 

A woman— _what woman?_ —singing about her love.

She sings:

 

> _Her brow is like the snowdrift,_
> 
> _Her throat is like a swan,_
> 
> _Her face it is the fairest_
> 
> _That e'er the sun shone on._

A woman....  Love....

Your heart leaps. You gasp for breath and with that breath, your life comes rushing back. Light, air, a cacophony of sound and smell…. 

And with your life, your memories. Paternoster Street in the rain, under attack. Vastra’s exasperated harrumph at you before she dragged you inside the carriage house. Hunkered down in warm hay while you all argued—in whispers—about what to do. Distant laser fire followed by a woman’s scream let you know you didn’t have much time. 

“It’s an Yrkite quad assassin team—or one that’s gone mercenary. They’ve been known to do that,” said Vastra, her disapproval of the mercenary possibility plain on her scaled features. 

“What’re they after, then?” asked Jenny, her brows knitted in a frown above her soft eyes. 

“Well, me, I dare say. If it’s a mercenary team, any one of a dozen races might have hired them.” When Jenny scowled, Vastra added, “It’s not entirely my fault, darling! I’ve been very busy this year.” 

“We shall melt them in acid!” said Strax, pounding a three-fingered fist into his other hand. 

“Oooh, I like him!” said Missy, grinning devilishly in the lantern light. “Let’s do what the angry potato says.” 

Missy. Missy? 

“Missy!” You bolt upright on the name, reaching blindly until the world rights itself. You thrash wildly until you can see again and Missy is there, holding you, calming you. 

“There, there, Poppet. I’m here, I’m here,” she says and her voice is hoarse and broken, a shadow of its usual devil-may-care tone. 

You go stone still in her arms and look at her. Tears and blood speckle her cheeks and her blue eyes are gazing at you with such hope, such relief. Without thinking and before she can do anything to stop you, you surge upward and kiss her, cupping her face in your hands, feeling your whole body tremble when she kisses you back. You deepen the kiss desperately, sick with dread she’ll stop you or push you away. You are the desert and she is the soft morning dew. She’ll be gone before you open your eyes. 

But Missy kisses you back and she keeps kissing you. She tastes like bitter lemon and ginger cordial and delight and you want every drop. When the kiss finally slows and you part, you rest your forehead against hers and you do not open your eyes. You heart beats wildly in your chest and you try to catch your breath, try to steel yourself for the rebuke you know is sure to come. 

When you feel her move to speak, you take a chance and silence her with the softest, sweetest kiss—a breath across her lips. 

“I love you,” you say, forestalling whatever she was planning to say herself. You rally the courage to open your eyes and you steal a glance through your long eyelashes. “I love you, Missy,” you repeat, your hands still tangled in tendrils of her auburn hair, still cupping her face. “So be careful what you say to me.” 

She’s quiet for such a long time, you don’t think she’ll say anything at all. Eventually, she sighs. 

“It was so much easier when I thought of you as the puppy,” she laments quietly, shaking her head as she reaches up to caress your cheek with the backs of her long, elegant fingers. 

You smile up at her. “So I’m not the puppy, I’m not sandwiches, and I’m not stolen,” you say. You wipe away the last of her drying tears. “What am I, then?” 

“I don’t know, do I?” Missy sounds vaguely petulant about that fact. “Whatever you are, you frighten the daylights out of me.” 

“Fair enough,” you say. “Let me know when you figure it out, though, yeah?” You grin and bat your eyelashes coquettishly. 

“Ahem,” comes a voice from outside the stall and you realise you’re still in the carriage house, still hunkered down in warm, clean hay. “Madame Vastra would like to know the status of the boy,” says the voice and you look up to see Strax standing at attention, his eyes staring at a spot somewhere way above your heads. 

“For the last time, Strax, I am _not_ a boy!” you shout reflexively. Then you hear what he said. “Hang on. What do you mean ‘status of the boy’?” You look back at Missy. “Did something happen?” 

“You don’t remember?” asks Vastra as she steps just inside the stall. You see Jenny hovering behind Strax, worry marring her features. 

“Remember what?” you ask, looking from Vastra to Missy and back. The awkward silence goes on too long. “Look, somebody better tell me what it is I’ve forgotten. Before I get angry. You don’t want me angry.” 

When Missy doesn’t respond, Vastra does. “The Yrkite assassin squad outflanked us. As we were preparing our counter-attack, one of them breached the carriage house. He fired on the first person he saw: Missy. You leapt in front of her and took the full force of the shot fired.” 

“And?” You know she’s leaving something out. You look at Missy again but she’s not looking at you. “And?” you ask, leaning down to catch Missy’s eye. 

“And I killed them,” she says, her voice hard. “I killed them all.” She rears back defiantly and walls you’d only just reached beyond slam back into place in her eyes. “I would again. Make no mistake.” 

“Good,” you say and your conviction is solid. “Good!” you say again, whirling to pin Vastra with your own defiant gaze. “Are you judging her? You said the assassin squad was after you. She saved your life—” 

“That’s not why she killed them,” says Vastra calmly. Then she looks at Missy. “Is it?” 

“And you? What would you have done? With _her_ laying at your feet?” asks Missy, tossing her head at Jenny outside the stall. “What would _you_ have done?” 

Vastra smiles gently. “The same. The very same. I am not judging you, Mistress. We two are cut from the same cloth. I merely want to help you. To help you both.” 

“How?” you ask, but Vastra ignores you. 

“She should know what you did for her,” she says to Missy. “She has a right to know.” 

“I have the right to know what?” You search Missy’s eyes for some clue to what Vastra is talking about but she’s shuttered them away. You feel the loss keenly. 

“The Yrkite assassin who breached the carriage house had a clear shot at Missy from less than ten meters away. You took the full force of that shot and were gravely injured. In fact, if my comprehension of human anatomy remains intact—“ says Vastra, saucily cutting her eyes at her wife in the hall, “—I believe you…died.” 

You gape at the Silurian. “But I’m not dead,” you say, pointing out the obvious. “I feel fine.” In fact, you feel more than fine. You feel like you could fly circles around the sun. 

Vastra shrugs enigmatically and you remember. You remember the dark and the cold and the scream. You remember the agony and how the golden light soothed it away. You look up at Missy and cup her cheek in your hand. 

“You brought me back? With regeneration energy?” you whisper. 

Missy closes her eyes. If you didn’t know better, you’d say she was embarrassed. 

“Well, of course I did,” she says. She looks at you again, helplessly. “You daft lamb. _I_ can regenerate; you can’t! It was the only way to make things right.” 

You want to kiss her senseless. You want to do more than that, too, but you’re painfully aware of three pairs of curious eyes watching you both intently. So you pinch her—hard—instead. 

“Ow! What was that for?” 

“We’ll talk about it later,” you growl into her ear. “When we’re alone.” 

Vastra’s highly sensitive ears have no problem hearing you, even sotto voce, and she clears her throat, her scales darkening briefly to a shade of evergreen. 

“Yes, well. Jenny, darling, perhaps you should help the Mistress freshen up? Find her something to wear while we have her suit cleaned. I’m sure there’s something appropriate in my wardrobe. Strax and I will examine Clara’s health then escort her back to the house.” 

Jenny smiles demurely. “Yes, mum. I know just the thing.” To Missy, she says, “If you’ll come with me, Mistress?” 

“Go,” you tell Missy, sensing her hesitance. “I’ll be right behind you.” 

“Fine,” she says, pouting. “But nothing red. Red clashes with my hair.” She pats her somewhat disheveled up-do vaingloriously and bats her eyelashes. 

“Find her something red, Jenny!” you call, laughing at the look on Missy’s face when you do. 

Jenny, always eager to please, starts to say, “Yes, mum,” but Missy cuts her off. 

“Noooo! I said ‘Nothing red!’ Do none of you humans ever listen?” 

As the two of them make their way out of the carriage house, Vastra beckons Strax over to you, watching as he readies his equipment. 

“The Doctor called,” she says as the Sontaran nurse makes his first pass with the health scanner. “He thought you two might end up here someday. He asked me not to interfere.” 

You smile at Vastra warmly. “Thank you.” 

“Having seen you both together, I wouldn’t have even if he’d wanted me to.” 

You quirk an eyebrow at her. “No?” 

“No. You remind me of another couple I once knew. They managed to make their unique situation work; why shouldn’t you?” 

“The boy is perfectly healthy, Madame Vastra. Perhaps his oxytocin level is a bit high—” 

“We won’t be adjusting that, Strax. You may go. Prepare the blue room for our guests, will you? I daresay they will be staying with us for a few days at the very least.” 

“Shall I include the traditional complement of booby-traps and trip wires, my lady? We have a lovely selection of—” 

“No!” you say, cutting off Vastra’s reply. “No traps. Missy’ll think you’re flirting. She loves traps.” 

“Perhaps outside the room, then?” counters Strax, trying to be helpful. 

“None at all, thank you, Strax,” says Vastra. “Our current household defenses should be adequate for now. I doubt whoever hired the Yrkite assassins expected them to fail. It will be some time before they try again. Prepare the blue room—without traps of any kind—and then help Jenny in the kitchen. We should all have a strong cup of tea after such a day.” 

Strax bows. “Yes, my lady. Immediately.” He turns on his heel and marches out of the stall. 

Vastra reaches down to give you a hand up from your spot in the hay and nods at you. 

“It looks like we’ll need to find you something to wear, too, dear. We can’t have you catching cold, now can we?” 

“What?” You look down and see the hole—the massive hole with burnt edges—in your gray jumper and the shirt that used to be underneath it. “Wha—! Wait!” You try to look at your back over your shoulder but end up spinning around twice like a dog chasing its tail. When you stop, you cross your arms over the hole, trying to hide it—or, rather, the broad expanse of skin showing through it. “Did that go all the way through?” 

Vastra nods. “As I said, you were gravely injured.” 

“’Gravely injured?’” You can’t quite believe your ears. “Vastra, that’s a little more than ‘gravely injured.’ That’s—that’s blown up!” 

“And you expected what, exactly, after stepping in front of an Yrkite precision laser rifle set to kill?” Her eyes harden. “A tickle?” 

You remember the tears on Missy’s cheeks and the relief in her eyes. You realise she didn’t know if what she’d done would save you. If she was too late to save you. 

“How long, Vastra? How long until she knew it had worked?” 

“She held you and sang to you for a little over three hours. Enough time for Strax, Jenny, and I to dispose of the remains of the assassin team she’d killed.” 

You look down at the flattened hay beneath your feet, imagining Missy sitting there with your body in her arms, waiting for you to come back. You imagine how you’d feel if the situations were reversed. 

Vastra comes to your side and takes your arm. “Come, Clara. I promise, a change of clothes and some tea will make everything a little clearer.” 

You nod vaguely. Tea really does sound good right about now. As you fall into step beside her, Vastra looks at you thoughtfully. 

“May I offer a small insight into your…companion?” 

You nearly laugh at her choice of words but you clear your throat to cover it. “Please,” you say, nodding, curious as to what she’ll say. 

“She doesn’t have a word for what she feels for you yet,” she says with the utmost care. “She’s lived a long time—eons, even—with only her rage and her madness as company. She will discover the right word—and soon, if the events of today are any indication.” Vastra smiles at you, genuinely pleased. “In the meantime, continue as you are. She needs your support and understanding now more than ever before.” 

“She has them,” you say and, again, your conviction is strong. “I know how I feel about her.” 

Vastra studies you for a moment. “Yes, you do, don’t you? Just remember, she will face challenges you have no way of understanding. She might lash out—at the universe, at you, at nothing at all—while she attempts to make sense of what’s happening to her. I ask you to have patience with her during these times. Can you do that?” 

“Of course I can! I _will_.” There’s no hesitation in your answer, none at all. You look up at Vastra curiously, though. “What challenges?” you ask. 

Vastra smiles again, this time knowingly. “Well, it isn’t every day a predator falls in love with her prey, is it?” 

As you stumble at her words, she continues on to the house, laughing. 

 

**_Ready, Willing, and Able_  **

Now properly dressed in your green velvet gown from your last visit to Paternoster Street, you make your way to the blue room after tea. You feel your heart flutter nervously in anticipation of what you might find because the blue room is new to you and Missy left the parlor before you did. 

After a few false starts, you eventually find it and blush when you discern its location. It’s as far away from Vastra and Jenny’s suite of rooms as is possible while still in the same house. Vastra’s choice was no accident. 

Overcome by a sudden rush of butterflies, you steel yourself for whatever you might find in the blue room—and enter to find Missy standing in the center of it with her hands on her hips, a look of exasperation and disbelief painted across her oh-so-expressive features. 

“Do you know there is not one booby-trap or trip wire in this whole room?” she asks incredulously. “I know; I looked. And there isn’t one!” She throws her hands up in the air. “The state of the world today,” she says, her tone world-weary and long-suffering. “It’s tragic is what it is.” 

You laugh and Missy’s eyes sparkle at the sound. You flounce over to her and throw your arms around her neck. “I told Strax not to,” you tell her. “He offered but I didn’t want him flirting with you.” You reach up and whisper, “I want to keep you all to myself.” 

“Oh, you do, do you? Was that all part of your plan, you great peabrain?” Missy rolls her eyes at you. “Lying there, a hole blown clear through you, dead as a doornail….” 

You roll your eyes back at her. “I didn’t need a plan. I’m the Impossible Girl, remember? Everything always works out in the end.” 

Missy gazes at you for a long moment then gently disengages herself from your arms, her mood darkening. “You’re something all right,” she says. “I just wish I knew what.” 

You put your hands on your hips, a little put off by her tone. “What’s that supposed to mean?” 

When she doesn’t answer, you continue. “You courted me, Missy. Remember that? With the ribbon and the hearts and the bloody treacle. _You_ courted _me._ And I get you may not have thought it all the way through. Maybe you thought I’d never say yes. Maybe you thought I’d run as far and as fast as I could away from you. But I didn’t, did I? I chose you and I keep choosing you. Even after dying, all I wanted—all I want—is you.” 

You remember waking up in her arms and the sun that rose in her eyes when you came to in the carriage house. You remember saying her name with your first breath. 

“Not to save me, Missy. Not to entertain me, not as a hobby. I just want you. Wild, unpredictable, gorgeous you. And I _did_ think it all through. I had weeks to decide and I still got on the back of my motorbike with you. Even knowing you might never want me in the way I want you. Even knowing—“ Your voice cracks a little and you take a deep breath, trying to bring your emotions under some semblance of control. “Even knowing,” you start again, your voice measured and calm, “how short a time we might have together.” 

It’s hopeless, you realise. You’re already too far gone. You’re tied to her now by so much more than a red ribbon but she’s made no promises, no declarations. If she decides she doesn’t want you, you’ll be left with a broken heart and nowhere to go. You don’t fit anywhere else in the Universe and you know it. 

You walk over to where she’s sulking and you cup her cheek in your hand.

“I know you’re afraid. But you’re wrong when you say you don’t know what I am.” 

You lean up on your tip-toes and give her a gentle kiss. 

“I’m Clara Oswald, the Impossible Girl. And I love you.” 

Missy shakes her head and wags a finger at you. “You’re barmy is what you are! I’m not good; I’m not nice. I may not even be sane. I mean, look around you, Clara!” She twirls, gesturing to the room at large. “I can’t give you this,” she says and you know exactly what she’s trying to say. She can’t give you a home or a family. A normal life. A secure life. Stability has never been one of her strong suits. 

“I’ll take whatever you can give,” you tell her, gazing at her. You give her a lopsided smile. “I don’t want to change you, Missy; I want to be with you. For however long we have.” 

You hold your hand out to her, an invitation. “We deserve that much, don’t we?” 

She stares at you for such a long time, you wonder if she’s been frozen in one of her own time tricks. Then she smiles back, reaching for your hand, letting herself be pulled into your arms. She rests her forehead against yours. 

“We deserve to have our heads examined,” she says ruefully. “But let’s have it your way then.” She pulls away from you abruptly and saunters over to the vanity, sitting down before the mirror. You look at her quizzically, your eyebrows telegraphing your confusion by choosing opposite routes on your forehead—one up, one down. 

Missy’s reflection catches your eye and she grins at you. Her gaze is steady and unwavering, the blue in her eyes darkening to indigo. She reaches up slowly and pulls a single hairpin from her hair, letting an auburn ringlet loose from its prison. 

“What’re you doing?” you ask. Something in the way she’s looking at you has set the butterflies a-flutter again with a vengeance. You can barely breathe. 

Missy takes another hairpin from her hair and a cascade of curls drops to her shoulders. 

“You see that bed behind you?” she asks. 

You glance over your shoulder briefly. “Yeah,” you say. Your voice is so quiet you can barely hear it. 

“Well, I’ve seen its future and it includes you….” She removes another pin. 

“And me….” And another. 

“But no—“ Pin. “Naughty.” Pin. “Little.” Pin. “Hairpins!” 

Eyes wide, you watch as she pulls the last one, setting her long, voluptuous sable hair gloriously free. She tosses it from side to side for a moment then turns to look at you over her shoulder. 

“Your turn, Poppet,” she says, her voice nothing more than a sexy growl. You do not require a second invitation. 

Later, tangled up together as Missy does unspeakably wonderful things to you, you breathlessly ask, “I thought you found ‘the reproductive frenzy’ of our ‘noisy, little food chain’ disgusting.” 

Missy abandons the love-bite she’s administering and gives it some thought. After a moment, she shrugs. “It has its merits,” she says noncommittally. 

You goggle at her. “’Merits?’ Really?” 

“Oooh, aren’t you the chatty one?” she counters, clucking her tongue at you. “What’s the matter, love? Can’t think of anything better to do with that mouth of yours?” 

She raises one eyebrow in question and you growl at her, using the momentary distraction to flip your positions. “I’ll show you what I can do with this mouth of mine,” you say, pinning her wrists above her head. 

“Oh? Please do,” she says haughtily. “I’ve been on my feet all—mpf.” 

You shut her up with the deepest, most erotic kiss you’ve ever given anyone in your whole life. Then you show her where your _real_ talents lie. 

Later—much, much later—deep in the night, listening to the endless rain against the roof and Missy’s soft snores as she lies sleeping in your arms, you are the happiest you have ever been. 

_fin_


End file.
